Facebook wants your phone number: Don’t give it to them
Dan Seitz Facebook will, in the next few days, be asking for your phone number to improve their security. This is what security professionals call, in their jargon, “a fat load of crap.”
Facebook (composite)
Granted, if you have a Facebook app on your phone, Facebook likely already has your phone number. Which makes it weird they’re officially asking you for it, again, via your web browser.
The official line is that Facebook can use your phone number to wipe your password and text you a new one immediately if your account gets hacked, but, first of all, you should be using a secure password for your Facebook anyway, and secondly, it opens the door to future annoyances.
Facebook is not really a fan of letting its users agree to things. It’s a much bigger fan of forcing them into things they don’t want. Just ask anybody with that annoying friend who keeps “subscribing” them to groups they don’t care about, or keeps trying to check them in to places when they don’t want that information out there.
There’s nothing stopping Facebook from rewriting its rules; it actually just changed its privacy policy. So essentially, if you confirm your number with Facebook, you could wake up tomorrow and have all your “friends” be able to call you directly. Or have your entire Wall streaming to your phone as text messages. Or some other “service” you don’t want, but that you agreed to.
Make your Facebook password more secure, and be smart about where you go and what you do online. Giving your number to a company likely to abuse it is just a bad idea.
Facebook Security Tips [TechCrunch]
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